


227 - Happy Birthday Van

by storiesaboutvan



Category: Catfish and the Bottlemen (Band)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Reader-Insert
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 17:46:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,987
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17390840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesaboutvan/pseuds/storiesaboutvan
Summary: A fic about: Van McCann getting everything he wants for his birthday.





	227 - Happy Birthday Van

**Author's Note:**

> This was a collab with another writer. You can find her on Tumblr at you-andthebottlemen.

Part 1: Cupcake

The day was coming alive just for Van. The sun leaked through the cracks in the blinds and fell in shadowy lines across your body and his face. It was going to be a warm day. There would be just enough sunshine to let him wear his glasses without looking like an idiot, but enough breeze that one of his many black jackets would keep him cosy.

You woke up early. He was still asleep, his lanky arms wrapped around your middle, the gentle rise and fall of his breath on your skin. At some point in the night, he’d wriggled down under the covers and tangled himself in bed sheets and bodies. Where he could only see linen and skin, you could see the whole bedroom, flooded in the early morning light.

Van’s eyes were closed tight, his eyelashes almost brushing the skin of his cheeks. His face was soft and expressionless, carefree. You looked at each and every freckle that was dotted across his skin and at all the pieces of hair that lay out of place on the pillow and around his head like a halo. The day was coming alive just for Van, but he was coming alive for you.

“Little One,” his voice whispered.

“Goooooood morning, birthday boy!” you whispered back, chest swimming with sticky honey love. An audible groan, then arms tighter around you. “No! Van! Birthdays are good.”

He slid out from under the covers and sat up. Shirtless and messy haired, he looked disorientated by the existence of a world around him. His eyes were squinting through the light and he looked at you like you’d said something offensive. Laughing, you sat up and let him pull you closer, into his lap. He buried his head in the crook of your neck.

“Nope,”

“Yeah, ‘cause you get to see all your friends and everyone buys you drinks,”

“Already do,”

“Ohhh! I forgot you’re just so popular. Rockstar and all that, huh?” you teased.

Van’s head shot up and he gave you a look. “That ain’t what I mean,”

“I know,” you replied with a laugh. You folded hair behind his ear and kissed the tip of his sharp nose. “You get lots of presents from everyone,”

“Don’t need nothing,”

“You might not need anything, but you deserve nice things,” you argued, turning the pendant of his necklace between your fingertips.

“Got nice things. Got you.”

He said it with a grin and it was typical cheesy Van. You shook your head.

“Yeah, you got me, but today you get me any way you want,”

“Is that right?” he asked, grinning again.

It was the softness of the curls in his freshly washed hair. No, no, it was the orangey tinge of his freckles. Or maybe the weirdness of his bones; they stuck out at odd angles. His hips, knuckles, cheeks. It had to be the way he spoke to his parents, or about his friends. Honestly, there was no single item that topped your list of favourite things about Van. There wasn’t one trait or characteristic that made you love him. It was all of it. But, that grin. Oh man, it had to be up there.

You nodded and kissed him on the lips and he lazily kissed you back, still half asleep.

“Wait here.”

Van didn’t want a party. He didn’t want presents or a big deal made about him. That happened all year. In the limelight of Catfish, he was only just learning how to be comfortable. Relaxed. Calm. His twenty-fifth birthday then, had to be the opposite. Low-key.

You’d comply with that, but still needed him to feel good. Special. Wanted. Loved.

Escaping the warm embrace of the bed and venturing into the cold of the kitchen, you made Van a cup of tea, extra milky – how you both liked it.

Returning to him, you held the pale yellow cupcake out flat on your palm and went to start singing. The small flickering candle drew Van’s attention away from you for only a second. He rolled around in bed so he was lying on his stomach, hugging a pillow under his chin. With hair fallen over eyes and that boyish grin plastered on his face, you learnt yet again it was possible to love him more and more every time you looked at him.

“Ha-”

“Don’t you be singing that!”

“Van!”

“I sing to you; that’s our thing.”

You shook your head, placing the tea on the bedside table and kneeling next to Van on the bed. You held the cupcake to him and he blew the candle out from where he was lying. As he moved to do so, you watched the muscles in his back ripple with effort.

He settled back down, rested his head on the pillow, and stuck his tongue out. You laughed, knowing what he wanted. Finger dipped through the thick cupcake frosting, you let him lick it off.

“Banana?! You’re class, Little One. Thank you!”

It was going to be your small and simple gestures that got him through the otherwise overwhelming day.

After he’d eaten his cupcake, sharing with you, he burrowed back under the blankets.

“Happy?” you asked.

“Mmm-hmm, but think you said somethin’ ‘bout having you any way I want?”

Sighing, amused and in love, you let Van pull you back into bed with very little difficulty.

 

…

 

Part 2: Pizza

The oven was on and heating steadily. The warmth was already taking the chill out of the kitchen air. With the chicken nuggets, pizza bases and curry puffs on the bench defrosting, you decided to stray from the plan of low-key. Regardless of what Van said, he deserved something special just from you. Your own brand of celebration.

The rainbow fairy lights that had sat in their box, dusty and forgotten about for months, were strung above the couch. You smiled as you worked, happy to finally have a perfect use for the pretty little things. If Van could see your unbalanced frame perilously close to falling, he’d protest and yell. You hung glittery, silver streamers from the curtain railing above the main window of the room and from the doorway between the kitchen and living room. Glitter made everything seem like a party and it certainly made everything better. The silver also perfectly reflected the lights, sending little reflections of rainbow dancing across the walls.

Back in the kitchen, you drew love hearts all over the blackboard wall in the kitchen and added ‘Happy Birthday Ryan’ in written in big cursive letters in the middle. The ‘I’ in birthday was dotted with a star. You smirked, knowing he’d hate to see his given name but wouldn’t have the heart to get pissy about it; you got away with a lot like that.

Chicken nuggets and curry puffs in the oven, sweet wine chilled in the fridge, and lounge room floor covered in pillows, you were almost ready. A few minutes later you heard the familiar sound of Van’s car tires crunching over the gravel in the driveway. You quickly finished pouring the shredded cheese into the bowl on the counter, the toppings all set up ready for Van to construct his dream pizza, and went and turned the living room lights off, letting the little sparkling rainbows do their job.

“Honey, I’m home!” Van called out dramatically.

As a string of familiar sounds echoed through the house – Van’s keys dropping into the tray on the entrance table (a habit you’d enforced so he’d stop losing them), his brown boots hitting the floor after he’d thrown them off – you felt the flutter of nerves in your stomach. You knew you had no reason to worry; he’d appreciate that you’d bought his lazy favourites for dinner. Neither of you were really good in the kitchen anyway. It was probably just excitement rather than nerves.

You walked out to meet Van in the hallway but saw him already standing in the living room staring at the lights with a dopey little smile on his lips. The rainbows weren’t just bouncing off the surfaces of the room, but off his skin too. A dreamy image of the love of your life. He reached up to touch a silver streamer, then glanced over at you as you moved into the room.

“This is so you, Little One,” he said, sounding impressed but his voice was low and calm.

“I know you wanted like, not a party, but I thought I’d set the mood,” you replied with a shrug. Van smiled, all teeth.

“I love it. And I love you.”

Van crossed the room and wrapped his arms tightly around you and kissed your forehead. It had only been a few hours out of the day but you’d missed him like crazy. Judging by the way he held you for a minute longer than usual, you could tell he felt the same. With your face buried in his chest, you couldn’t help but breathe in his smell. Familiar cigarettes and the same coconut shampoo you used. There was a faint smell of something else though. Burning?

“So, how was your birthday? And, why do you smell like that?” you asked.

When you’d kissed Van goodbye as he left for his day in the morning, he was in that sooky, quiet mood. The one that called for pots of tea and hoodies and butterfly kisses. Instead, he got a banana frosted cupcake and a day of work. You knew his mood would only be irritated by the relentless birthday attention from every single person he came into contact with. You felt sorry for the guys who had to deal with him when all they probably wanted was to show him love.

“S’okay… Uh, Bondy got these firecracker things. Almost burnt my eye out. Got the ashy stuff on me,” he mumbled, taking you by the hand and leading you into the kitchen through the waterfall of streamers.

Van pawed at them as he walked through; it was almost incomprehensible how cute he was. When his eyes landed on the blackboard wall, his grip on your hand tightened and you watched his face light up. His eyes tracked from the hearts and the note, down to the bench laid out with ingredients to make homemade pizzas.

“This is perfect, Y/N. Smells fuckin’ good too,” he said in a praise, then pulled you into him. As he kissed you hard and you tasted love, his hand crept under your shirt and rested on the bare skin of your hip.

“Happy if you are,” you said, moving your lips away from him for only a second. You curled your arms around him and stood, absorbing the moment.

While the puffs and nuggets cooled, Van made the pizzas. The fact he called the process “decorating” made your heart feel fuzzy and warm. You sat up on the kitchen bench and listened as he told you about his day. Van and homemade pizza was a beautiful thing.

“Cheese and capsicum. You’re so boring, Y/N,” he teased.

You scoffed, shaking your head.

“I’m not boring; I’m just simple! I don’t know how you eat all that,” you replied, nodding your head at his pizza.

He’d topped it, as usual, with every ingredient possible, even mushrooms and pineapple. You were grossed out but he was happy and that’s all that mattered.

“Ta-da!” he cheered.

You looked over and saw that he had created a badly, but sweetly thought of, heart shape with the chopped-up capsicum on your pizza. You blew him a kiss and he pretended to catch it as he threw a piece of chorizo in his mouth. 

When the pizzas were in the oven, Van followed you into the lounge room carrying bowls of food. You sat down and poured glasses of wine and flicked the television on.

“Where did these fancy things come from?” Van asked, picking up one of the coasters you’d put out earlier.

“Found them with the lights. We’ve got all sorts of stuff in that cupboard,” you replied. Only Van McCann would consider coasters to be fancy. “Okay, so, I got one more thing that’s gonna make this perfect,”

“Already is,”

“Yeah, yeah, but,” you replied, holding a finger up telling him to wait. As you left the room Van put three chicken nuggets in his mouth and settled into his floor nest.

When you returned, he pretended not to be painfully interested in the fact your hands were held behind your back. Sitting on your knees next to him, you smirked as Van looked up at you and fluttered his eyelashes accidentally.

“One more thing?” he asked.

“Yeah. Hold out your hands and close your eyes,” you instructed. Van quickly complied. You placed the small bag of perfectly ground weed in his palm. You’d tied a pretty blue ribbon around the bag too. “Okay. Open.”

Van laughed when he saw it. He nodded with approval and gave you a messy hug.

“Makes sense why you got so much food,” he commented.

Lungs filled and eyes glazed over, you watched each other make slow movements as you chewed through the nuggets and puffs.

“Little One… There’s still pizza!” Van said in an excited whisper. You nodded into your wine glass. So thirsty.

“My love heart pizza,” you replied, eyes back on the television screen.

“Your love heart pizza. My everything pizza,” Van said.

For a minute you were both silent, watching the show. Van’s hand crept over and your fingers and his tangled up. Another minute went by.

“You’re my everything pizza,” you said. Van slowly looked over at you and snorted.

“Then you’re my love heart pizza,” he replied. It was the closest to the ‘if you’re a bird, I’m a bird’ scene from The Notebook you were ever going to get. But, yours was better.

With perfect timing, the oven made a shrill ding. You both padded out to the kitchen in your mismatched socks. Slowly and carefully, Van took the pizzas from the oven and plated them. He cut yours up but left his whole. The capsicum heart had cooked into a triangle shape but you loved it more than anything else in the whole wide world, except for Van.

Back on the lounge room floor, you ate as you watched the show. With each passing scene, you became more confused. Another round of wine and weed didn’t help. It then occurred to you that Van had been constantly changing the channel for the whole time you’d been watching television. More than that, there had been no show on at all. You had both been trying to weave a cohesive narrative out of commercials for almost an hour. When the realisation truly set in, the hilarity was beyond expression and you silently nodded to yourself and failed to tell Van what had happened.

“Movie?” you asked Van as you piled the empty plates and bowls up on the table, making room to repack the pipe. He nodded and rolled across the carpet to the where the DVDs were kept. The rainbow lights were making the room look dreamy. The food in your tummy was making you feel heavy. The dope in your mind was stretching shapes and making colour have sound. Van spoke. He did. You knew that. But what did he say? Then, he was in front of you all of a sudden.

“Little One?” he asked with a laugh. You laughed in reply. “Le’s jus’ bed, yeah?”

You would never regret the decision to spend an excessive amount of money on a mattress topper. It was fluffy and made the bed feel like a cloud. You thought so even when sober. But, high as a kite and drunk on love, it was heaven on Earth. Van sat against the headboard watching you do somersaults up and down the bed. Each time you landed near him, he’d pull you close and kiss a different spot on your face. You’d giggle and roll away.

The room was lit by moonlight, seeping in through the open blinds. On the bedside table there were mugs and the wrapper from the birthday cupcake. You went to ask Van if anyone had got him cake, but looked up to find him gone. Then, he was walking back through the bedroom door with another pizza. You couldn’t remember if you knew he had cooked a third or not. He was eating the mini pizza whole and when he took his place on the bed, you crawled to him and opened your mouth. He grinned and let you eat.

“Everything pizza,” he said. You scrunched up your face. Even out of your mind you could tell the combination of flavours was gross. Van laughed.

When the pizza was gone and he’d brushed the crumbs off the bedding and onto the floor, you curled up under the blankets. Everything was quiet and still. You could feel your heart beating and the pulse in your neck. Reaching out, you put your hand to Van’s neck to feel his too.

“Good,” you whispered.

“Am I alive?”

“Yeah.”

He smiled. “That’s good… Oh my god. I probably didn’t need that last everything pizza,” he said, stretching out and running his hand down his stomach.

“Food baby,” you observed, pointing at his tummy. He nodded and moved you onto your back. Van lifted your shirt and lowered himself to kiss your stomach, just below your belly button. “Also food baby,”

“Ah-huh. Imagine if it was a real baby,” he replied.

“Will be one day,”

“Soon?” he asked.

“Sureeeeeeeeeeeee. Not today though. Birthday today,” you said, moving to lay on your side. Van did the same, and you pressed closed, arms snaked around each other.

“Yeah. It’s been good. Thank you, for it all. Love you to bits, Y/N,”

“I love you too. Happy birthday.”


End file.
